The Law and Health Care Program at Maryland Carey Law will prepare you with the theory, skills, and practical experience needed to meet the growing demand for lawyers and policy makers adept in managing the complex issues associated with public and private health care settings.

Health Law Academics

The courses and clinics on this list count toward the Health Law Certificate:

  • Advanced Bioethics and the Law Seminar/Course
  • Advanced Legal Research: Health Law {Distance Learning Version}
  • Biomedical Research Regulation and Ethics
  • Business Aspects of Health Care Law Seminar
  • Center for Health and Homeland Security Externship
  • Center for Health and Homeland Security Externship Workshop
  • Civil Rights of Persons with Disabilities Clinic
  • Critical Issues in Health Care
  • Elder Law
  • Evidence: Issues in Medical and Forensic Evidence
  • Food Safety Regulation
  • Health and International Human Rights Seminar
  • Health Care Law and Policy
  • Health Law Practice Workshop
  • Health Law Seminar: Food and Drug Law
  • Health Law Seminar: Fraud and Abuse
  • Health Law Seminar: Health Information Privacy and Innovation
  • Health Law: Special Topic: Legal and Policy Issues in End-of-life Care
  • Journal of Health Care Law & Policy
  • Law and Policy of Emergency Public Health Response Seminar/Course
  • Licensing and Disciplining of Health Care Professionals Seminar
  • Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic
  • Medical Malpractice: Claims, Defenses and Litigation
  • Mental Disability and Criminal Law Seminar
  • Mental Disability Law
  • Public Health and the Law
  • Public Health Law Clinic

Other Resources

Practice-Based Learning

The experiential (or practice-based) learning requirement to earn the Health Law Certificate can be met through an externship or clinic. Both of these experiences offer you the opportunity to practice health law in a “real-life” setting. Through our externship program, students work for academic credit in one of many health law practice settings under the supervision of a health law attorney. The Clinical Law Program allows students to represent individuals or community groups with health law-related legal issues under the supervision of a faculty member.

Health Law Externship Program

Through the externship program, students interested in health law may earn credit by working for organizations and government agencies dealing with health care issues. Typically, students who elect to complete a health law externship in the spring or fall spend two full days a week at their placements for 4 credits, but students can earn from 3 to 11 credits depending on how many hours they spend at their placement. In addition to field experience, externships include a classroom component. Students who complete an externship must also enroll in the Health Law Practice Workshop, which is offered in the fall of each year.

Externships have included placements at:

  • National Health Law Program
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Maryland Office of the Attorney General (Department of Health-Mental Hygiene and Medicaid Fraud Control Unit)
  • Johns Hopkins Health System, Office of the General Counsel
  • Maryland General Assembly
  • United States Senate and House of Representatives
  • University Physicians, Compliance Unit
  • Center for Medicaid Advocacy
  • Maryland Board of Nursing
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH)
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • National Multiple Sclerosis Society
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, Office of the General Counsel
  • U.S. Department of Justice
  • US DHHS, Public Health Division
  • Johns Hopkins Office of Compliance

All Maryland Carey Law, externships are governed by the Externship Policy.

Clinical Law Program

The Clinical Law Program allows law students, under faculty supervision, to represent real clients with real legal problems. The program received the John Minor Wisdom Award from the American Bar Association in 1991 for its "high standards of professionalism and outstanding contributions in promoting an open profession and an open system of justice." It was the first law school program to be so recognized.

Our clinics afford second- and third-year students an opportunity to represent clients in cases involving access to or payments for health care. Clients have included low-income families and children, children and adults with disabilities, homeless persons, and the elderly.

Student representation may include:

  • judicial, administrative, and legislative advocacy
  • drafting legal documents
  • negotiating with adversaries
  • educating clients regarding their legal rights

The Clinical Law Program gives students the opportunity to focus on representing clients with other legal problems. Working with a hospital’s AIDS outpatient clinic, students advise and represent clients with HIV infection and their families. Working with programs serving the homeless, students advise and represent homeless clients. Legal issues confronting these clients and their student attorneys include obtaining public benefits and fighting discrimination in housing, employment, and health care.

The following Maryland Carey Law clinics satisfy the experiential requirements for the Health Law Certificate:

  • Civil Rights of Persons with Disabilities Clinic
  • Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic
  • Public Health Law Clinic

Students can receive formal recognition for completion of the Law and Health Care Program's Concentration in Health Law. To be awarded this designation, students must earn a minimum of 17 credits through the program's three basic components—classroom, experiential learning, and research and writing. The Health Law Certificate is approved by the Maryland Higher Education Commission, and students completing the requirements will be recognized by the health law community for possessing a level of expertise and specialization in the field. The number of graduating students completing the Health Law Concentration increases each year. Most recently, over 45 students qualified for the certificate. Following is a list of specific requirements: 

Health Law Concentration Certification Form
Health Law Concentration Writing Requirement Form
Health law Certificate Learning Outcomes

Health Law Certificate Requirements

If you are interested in obtaining the Health Law Certificate, please meet with Rebecca Hall, the program's managing director, early on in your law school career to discuss the requirements for the Health Law Certificate and how to plan your course schedule to meet the certificate requirements. On or before April 1 of your final semester (November 1 for December graduates), you must complete the Health Law Certificate application form and submit the form to Rebecca Hall in hard copy or scanned via email.

To obtain the Health Law Certificate, students must complete a minimum of 17 credits in health law in three areas (Courses and Seminars, Experiential Learning, and Research and Writing) pursuant to the following requirements:

  1. Courses and Seminars (at least 6 credits)
    1. Required Course: Health Care Law & Policy (3 credits)
    2. To meet the 6-credit requirement in this section, the student must take additional health law courses. 
    3. Other courses and credits that apply to the Health Law Certificate (these cannot be used to meet the 6-credit coursework requirement)
      1. Administrative Law (3 credits)
      2. Health Law Practice Workshop (2 credits)
      3. Employee Benefits Seminar (ERISA) (1 credit of this 3-credit course can be applied to the certificate)
      4. Families with Special Needs Children Seminar (1 credit of this 3-credit seminar can be applied to the certificate)
      5. Journal of Health Care Law & Policy (maximum of 6 credits)
  2. Experiential Learning (at least 3 but no more than 6 credits of externship and/or clinic credits)
    1. Externships (all students doing a Health Law Externship must complete the Health Law Practice Workshop for an additional 2 credits) AND/OR
    2. Health Law Clinics
      1. Public Health Law Clinic
      2. Civil Rights of Persons with Disabilities Clinic
      3. Intellectual Property & Entrepreneurship
      4. Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic
  3. Research and Writing
    1. This component can be satisfied through a:
      1. Seminar paper
      2. Independent written work on a health-related topic
      3. Health Law moot court or other approved competition paper
      4. Journal of Health Care Law & Policy (published papers only – online or hard copy)
      5. Health Law Writing Competition
    2. If it is a graded paper, you must receive a grade of B or higher for the paper to count toward the Health Law Certificate.
    3. As long as the paper meets the requirements in (a), it does NOT have to be the paper the student uses to meet the Advanced Writing Requirement (cert paper).